Grounded for Life

Grounded for Life
Fox TV
Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m.

The Finnertys are a second-generation American-Irish-Catholic family living on Staten Island in New York. Sean (played by notable actor Donal Logue) knocked up his girlfriend Claudia (Megyn Price) while still in high school, and now, 15 or 16 years later, they have a family of three, the eldest, Lily (played to obnoxious perfection by Lynsey Bartilson), a teenager herself. It’s not exactly what Sean and Claudia pictured way back in the mid-'80s, when they were rocking out and buying beer with fake IDs.

Why do I like this show? I dunno. I don’t watch it regularly, but when I do I laugh. I suspect it’s the general story structure: Each installment opens with what seems to be the resolution of that week’s dilemma. Then, through a series of flashbacks, we see how the craziness began and escalated. Through humor, we see the elder Finnertys’ hypocrisy as they attempt to steer their kids toward the straight-and-narrow; by show’s end, they see their hypocrisy, too. But they "mean well" so darned much, one can’t help but wince with recognition while one laughs at them.